18. Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
Roman
I keep my eyes on Xena, watching the emotions flicker across her face—anger, lust, confusion. She’s all over the fucking place, but the important thing is she’s feeling. As long as she feels, she’ll deal with it. No more running. She’ll learn to cope—by letting the emotions consume her. I’ll be her punching bag if I have to, but she will learn to deal with her shit. I came here to break her, but fuck, I didn’t have to lift a finger. We broke each other long ago.
So, what now? We heal. Stitch together the shattered fragments of us and build something new. Something that’s ours. Dark and twisted but ours.
I step closer, my hands cradling her beautiful face. "Xena," I say softly, my thumbs brushing over her cheeks. "I warned you a long time ago that playing games with me was dangerous. You’re mine. In every sense of the word. He touched what’s mine, so he paid in blood. I don’t regret that. My only regret is what happened because of that night. But not killing the golden boy."
Her eyes, those stunning brown eyes, glisten with unshed tears. Slowly, a single tear slides down her cheek. I lean in and lick it from her skin, savoring the salty taste. She shudders, melting into me. I bet she’s soaked, but she can wait. She’ll wait like a good fucking girl, and then she’ll be rewarded. It’s been ten long years without her, and I intend to savor every second when the time comes.
The music on the TV shifts, and an unfamiliar song starts playing. She glances at the screen, where " Star Shopping " by Lil Peep lights up. "This song reminds me of us," she whispers, almost to herself.
I listen to the lyrics, and I get it. The words echo our past—the turbulence, the fights, the twisted love, and the heartbreak. "Look at the sky tonight; all of the stars have a reason," the singer croons. I look down at Xena, her eyes reflecting the flickering TV light. I lean in to kiss her, but she pulls away, her gaze softening.
"Let’s decorate." She whispers as she bends over the box and begins to work.
I don’t stop her, even though every fiber of my body screams at me to. I watch her walk over to the TV, grab the remote, and switch the music back to Christmas songs. Silently, we pull out the old decorations—faded relics from a time when things were good. Pops was alive, happy, and in love with her mom. We were still twisted, but there was a semblance of normalcy.
Do I regret killing the golden boy? Hell no. Watching him inside the only woman I ever loved? He’s lucky I made it quick.
Thing is, Xena was my first everything—my first love, my first pussy, my first obsession. She’ll be my last too. Always hers. But I can’t take back the past. Maybe I should’ve shown her more back then, given her everything I wanted to now. But we were kids, and all I had to offer was possession and anger. I still have those emotions, but now, I can control them. Mostly.
I stand there, holding a strand of red tinsel, my mind drifting back to my first Christmas in prison—the night it all went down. The night he found me, sobbing, covered in blood, naked. And he helped me.
I hated Christmas, but she always loved it, and I took that from her. Just like I took everything else.
"Ro?" Xena’s voice pulls me from the spiraling darkness of my thoughts. Her hand cups my cheek, warm against the cold chill that’s settled into my skin. There’s a softness in her touch, one that contradicts the hardness of the life we’ve led. "You okay?"
I force a smirk, shrugging off the weight that’s been pressing on my chest. "Yeah, I’m good." I reach up and hang the tinsel along the wooden shelves Pops built years ago. Shelves meant for pictures and trophies—only he never got any.
Pops tried to build something, but just like everything else in his life, it went unfinished, incomplete. I hated pictures anyway. And trophies? Well, those weren’t for people like us. His wife—my mother—was a whore, plain and simple. More interested in getting high and sucking dick than raising a son or being a wife.
Stepping back, I stare at the shelves, at the space we’ve tried to make festive. The tinsel looks out of place, too shiny, too fake against the rough wood. Above, the mounted heads of animals stare back at me with glassy eyes—souvenirs from a time when Pops and I bonded over the only thing we ever connected on. Hunting.
I was good at hunting. Real good . It’s the only thing that ever-made sense to me. The thrill of the chase, the stillness before the kill. That’s how I was raised—tracking, stalking, taking down my prey. I didn’t need trophies for that. The heads on the wall told the story. But it’s the empty spaces between them that catch my attention, stark voids where trophies and pictures should’ve been but never were.
Those gaps haunt me, a reminder of everything we were supposed to be but failed to achieve. Pops never filled those spaces, just like he could never fill the emptiness inside himself. All his failures, all his regrets—he wore them like chains until they dragged him down. In the end, it wasn’t age or illness that took him. It was the weight of his own shame.
I guess I inherited that, too.
Xena’s fingers brush my jaw, bringing me back. Her eyes, searching mine, reflect the blinking Christmas lights behind us. "You sure you’re okay?" she asks, her voice softer this time, cautious.
I don’t answer right away. Instead, I turn my gaze back to the wall of dead animals, their glassy eyes staring back at me like ghosts from the past. "I took this from you, didn’t I?" My voice comes out low, heavy with the weight of the admission. "Christmas. You loved it, and I ruined it. Just like I ruin everything."
She shifts uneasily in front of me, her brows knitting together. "Roman, are you seriously okay?" Her question hangs in the air, pressing for an answer as I move away and glance over my shoulder.
I force a smirk, deflecting her concern with a wink. "Was I ever okay, Xena Bean? You think a man who kills is okay?"
Her flinch is almost imperceptible, but I catch it, the way her lips press into a thin line. I don’t take the words back, though. It’s the truth, and she knows it. I’m not a good man. I’ve never been. But I love her, and that love is the only thing that keeps me tethered to whatever humanity I have left. My black heart has her name carved into it, and it beats only for her.
She stays silent for a moment, her eyes flicking to the blinking lights, then back to me. There’s an unspoken understanding between us, a fragile connection built on years of shared pain and twisted love. I may not be a good man, but I’ll stop at nothing to keep her.
Create new memories. Fuck breaking her—I’ll rebuild her, piece by piece.
I slowly turn towards her. "How much do you hate me, little sister?"
Xena takes a step back. "Stop calling me that. I’m nothing to you, Roman Delgado."
My cock stirs. She’s going to fight me, and I fucking want that. I want her to fight, to put all her pain and anger into me because I can bear it. "How much did it hurt, huh? Tell me, little sister, how much did your life go to shit because of me?"
Xena laughs—a harsh, bitter sound. "You killed my boyfriend for fucking me. You went to prison. Your dad killed himself. I don’t know, Roman. Life was shitty for me, so I hope it was shitty for you in prison."
Each word is like a knife in the gut, but all I feel is pride. My Xena Bean is a fighter. She’s always been a survivor. Life threw her to the wolves, and she didn’t roll over. She survived. Just like me.
"That’s my girl," I say, my voice low, laced with the dark affection I’ve always had for her. "Always putting things in perspective. You’re right—prison was hell. But you? You were worth it."
She snorts, crossing her arms over her chest, eyes sharp and defiant. "Fuck you, big brother."
Biting my lip, I unbutton my flannel, letting it fall to the floor. "You know, you’re fucking beautiful when you fight. A goddess when you’re wild."
Her glare could burn a hole through me. "I'm not fighting you?" she laughs, the sound hollow. "I’m done fighting, Roman. Fighting you, fighting the world, fighting myself. It’s all just… tiring."
She pushes past me, heading straight for the liquor cabinet. "You said no drugs, not alcohol," she says, reaching for a bottle of vodka.
I clench my teeth. "Touch that, and I’ll punish you."
She shrugs as I trail behind her. "Promises, promises." Her fingers are inches away from the bottle when I grab her wrist, yanking her back against me.
"No," I growl into her ear. "You’re done running, Xena Bean."
She squirms in my grasp, but I don’t let go. "Tell you what, hermanita. You run, and if I don’t catch you, you can have the drink. But if I do…" I bring her wrist to my nose, inhaling her scent before sinking my teeth into her skin. She hisses at the pain but melts against me, her robe slipping off one shoulder, revealing the rose tattoo on her shoulder. "And if you catch me?" she breathes.
"I’ll break you," I whisper. "Punish you like the bad girl you are. You wanna play?"
Xena’s eyes flicker, torn between defiance and something else. Her pulse races under my fingers. "Why can’t you just let me go, Roman?"
"Because if it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth it. You told me that once—when I asked why you kept trying to get with me." Xena scoffs, her lips curling into a daring smirk. "So, what do you say? Fight me. Make it hard for me to catch you. Make me earn the right to break you." I say.
Before I can even react, everything happens in a blur. I don’t register the pain until my grip loosens on her, and I double over, groaning. The wild woman just kneed me right in the junk.
"Want to play? Fine. Catch me if you can, big bro." Her voice is light, teasing, as she darts off, her robe falling to the ground like a discarded promise. I brace myself against the cabinet, taking a moment to collect my breath. She wants me to chase her, catch her, fuck her. But first, I need to calm these urges… because when I do catch her, I’ll break her like she’s begging me to.
Her bare feet slap against the cold floor as she runs toward the back door, completely naked and barefoot. Crazy woman is heading out into the snow like that. She wants this. Wants to be caught. Wants to be fucked in the freezing cold.
I charge after her, my boots crunching through the fresh layer of snow, the harsh contrast of her barefoot escape only fueling the hunt. The cold bites at my skin, but it’s not enough to douse the fire blazing in my chest. The snow falls harder, each flake swirling in the wind, but it only sharpens my focus.
"Xena!" I call out, voice echoing through the air. "Oh, Xena Bean…"
She must’ve forgotten a couple of important things. First, I’m a hunter. Tracking is my specialty, and she’s just become my prey. Second, the snow is falling hard she’s naked and I’ll do her the favor of ending it quick before my girl freezes her crazy ass to death. Hell, I could end it all now with the push of a button—the remote’s chilling in my back pocket—but this… this feels more us. This sick game of chase, of pushing boundaries until they snap. She knows how this ends, but she keeps running. Drawing me in.
I spot her tracks heading toward the forest, erratic, just like my heart pounding in my chest. I resist the urge to rush after her, knowing the snow will muffle my steps. Instead, I stalk forward, slow and steady, the thrill of the hunt pulsing in my veins .
And then… smack. The first snowball hits me square in the face. Before I can even wipe it off, another one hits. And another. She’s pelting me with snowballs, and her laughter—light and wild—echoes through the icy trees.
"Xena!" I growl, this time in warning, but she just hoots in response, hurling another one at me.
I wipe the snow from my face, catching a glimpse of her bare skin as she ducks behind a tree. Her laughter rings out again, and damn if that sound doesn’t go straight to my core. It’s not the cold that sends a shiver through me—it’s the thrill of this game we always play.
"Alright, Xena, you wanna play?" I murmur, pulling the remote from my back pocket. I dodge her next snowball just in time to press the button.
"You fucking cheat!" she spits as she drops to her knees in the snow—right where I like her. "You look almost ethereal, naked out here. All you need now is a little pain. Maybe a little blood."
"Fuck you, Roman," she hisses, teeth gritted. I press the button again. The jolt makes her body spasm. Her knees hit the snow as she claws at the ground, gasping.
"Oh, you will be fucking." I saunter toward her, a predator ready to claim what’s mine. The sight of her, shuddering in the snow, her breath coming in ragged gasps, stirs something primal in me. The thrill of it all—the chase, the fight, the submission—drives me mad with desire.
I circle around her, taking my time. "You cheated," she breathes, barely able to form the words. Her body is trembling whether from the cold or anticipation, I can’t tell.
"It’s not cheating if it’s available to you," I reply, my smirk widening. The snow creaks beneath my boots as I close the distance between us. Her eyes, half-lidded and unfocused, stay locked on mine. I kneel behind her, scooping up a fistful of snow before pressing the button again, watching as she jerks forward onto all fours .
"Roman," she gasps my name, the sound more like a prayer than a plea.
I shove the snow into her mouth, muffling her voice as I lean in, licking a hot line from her dripping cunt to her puckered hole. "Fuck, Xena Bean…" I groan, tasting her sweetness as I devour her. I let myself go, losing myself in her completely, each quiver of her body beneath me fueling my hunger.
She gasps my name again, and the way her body writhes beneath me makes my chest swell with a satisfaction I can’t quite describe.
But just when I think I’ve got her, Xena twists, using her weight to shove me onto my back. The world tilts, and before I can even process what’s happening, she grabs a fistful of snow and slams it into my face, blinding me in a cold, sharp sting. By the time I wipe my eyes clear, she’s already on her feet, taking off again.
I shake my head, wiping the rest of the snow off, muttering under my breath. "You’re gonna catch hypothermia, you crazy bitch."
She throws a laugh over her shoulder, wild and reckless. "Maybe I will… maybe that’ll free me from you!"
I can’t help but grin. She thinks she can outrun me, escape this pull between us. She doesn’t understand—there’s no getting rid of me. Not even death could sever this bond. "Not even in death!" I yell after her. "I’ll follow you there too!"
My voice echoes through the trees as I push myself to my feet, adrenaline spiking through my veins as I start after her. The cold air burns in my lungs, but I welcome it, the thrill of the chase igniting something primal in me. This has always been our game—our twisted dance of fire and ice. I’ll hunt her down, just like I always do. For an eternity and whatever comes after that.